Kiss
my ass you mainstream fucks. All my status updates will be political in
nature until the system breaks. Fuck you and good night.
- Uillecc MacUillecc DubhDid no one get the point about Banks borrowing money from the government(Us, Our taxes) at no interest, selling it back to us with interest(Government guaranteed securities), or just sitting on it for more government paid interest? If this is not criminal it should be-- it's an actual ponzi scheme without the investors(us) consent.
Until there is a release of these funds back into our economy, our economy will be in an extended drought. The obvious answer is to make it unprofitable to just sit on capital. Reward actual investment in labor and products, tax the hell out of money made by just moving the money around. Make it where you have to actually release capital back into the economy to make a profit.- Kurt Goosenthis is the point that got me, banks borrowing money at near zero from the fed, then lending it to the government at even mere fractions higher than they are paying, its a never ending cash machine.... END THE FED.... the FED has the most guilt in screwing up this economy
- Joshua Chrysler BuermannKurt Goosen what are you going to replace it with?Reply · · October 14 at 9:01pm
- Karen GouldMy dear college student friends,
There are 41 slides in this presentation. These slides contain information that is and will impact your day to day life. Please read, not so you can get angry but so you can think about it, talk about it and be the change agents this country and world so desperately need.
I would really like to hear your feedback and thoughts. You know you are welcome to drop by for chocolate chip cookies and lemonade whenever you are nearby. My way of turning the Gould's kitchen into a think tank!- Amy Gelinas · Ivy Tech Community College of IndianaNick Van Dyk - Tell us about your experience with unemployment, please. And show us your proposed budget for a single mother making minimum wage. Finally, show us how a middle aged unemployed professional can afford to take a job that doesn't provide health insurance. I think you need to take a walk in another person's shoes. If you don't have imagination enough to manage that, you shouldn't be associated with Disney.
- Cig Neutron · Los Angeles, CaliforniaHow can you defend the people running big corporations by saying "they built the companies with their own blood, sweat, and tears." Yeah I'm sure Hitler worked pretty damn hard to build the Third Reich but does that make him right?
- Robert W HowingtonThank you for showing why the American Working Class is so fucking pissed off.
- Ichneumon Darcen · Top Commenter
- Rhea Robin · Garden City High SchoolIchneumon Darcen so, just how much time have you spent working AND homeless? Have you had to cut your work hours to lower your pay to a point you can't afford to feed yourself to qualify for the program to pay for your AIDS medications because your job doesn't pay you enough to afford their insurance? "a tough time of it" doesn't even begin to describe the reality before us. We WANT to work, we WANT to support ourselves and our families but we're being refused the means to do so. Pull your head out of the sand, we're standing at the threshold of a revolution.
- Nancy Goodwin · Event Staff at Marin country clubRhea Robin Thank You, WELL PUT !!Reply · · 23 hours ago
- Glenn Riggen · Phillips Junior CollegeI remember when in 1970's there was a gas crisis.. had to sit in line to get gas, only on certain days, and only can get so much.. meanwhile gas tankers sat offshore being turned away.. They said there was no oil.. Corp execs turned a profit.. Then in the 2000's there again was oil runout, (no oil).. and gas prices went up again.. The major oil companies were turning 40 billion quarterly profits.. Gas prices have yet to recover.. In 1990 minimum wage was 4.75 hr.. today its 8.50 hr.. (or close) gas prices jumped from.69 cents a gallon in 1990, to current 4.85 cents (or close).. Gas has gotten more expensive than cost of living increases.. But so has food, rent, cars, houses, etc.. Corporate greed without a trickle down economics plan is the problem.. The rich get richer, while the guy doing the work to make them richer stagnates, and in recent times, is backpeddaling. When houses 30 years ago sold for $40,000, the dream was reachable at $10 hr.. But with houses going for $400,000 today for the same house.. Common working class cant and wont ever reach the dream.. by the way.. $9-$10 is avg wage where I live.. and that's with 2 - 4 yrs exp.. Don't know where the other figures above came from.. certainly not out west.
- Gus Blake · Ron Paul Institute of Liberty and Constitutional SciencesWhen did the dream become owning a house? Live in a fucking city and follow the American Dream. No house, no various home insurances, no car, no car insurance, no gas, and no fat ass. Use your legs, your bike, and a subway pass. The "American Dream" is older than single family detached housing.
- Mark Black · West Carrollton City, OhioWell, Gus, seeing as how you work at JoAnn Fabrics, I guess it is your "dream" to use your legs, ride your bike, and ride the subway. About 1.5 percent of Americans live in cities, the other 98.5 are trying for their version of the "dream". So, get a real job and set your bar a little higher. Asshole
- Gus Blake · Ron Paul Institute of Liberty and Constitutional SciencesMark Black I like how you're telling a full time undergrad student to get a "real" job (whatever that even is; I guess that the millions of people out there who don't have salaried positions aren't "actually" working). All I did was provide an alternative view on the so-called dream which isn't limited to a house and a car, it is simply the freedom to work to achieve your dream. I don't know why everyone sees home ownership as the pinnacle of life and how everyone just has to have one. My bar is probably higher than yours is and doesn't include owning a house or a car. Also, New York City alone is 2.7% of the country's population, but nice job pulling 1.5% out of your asshole, Asshole.
- Dave BatesPeople have lost their homes, their jobs and their retirement savings. Real wages have not grown in 30 years. Kids are graduating with thousands in debt, no job prospects, and a standard of living that will be lower than their parents generation. Meanwhile, the top 1% is still doing exactly what they did when they crashed the economy and still getting million dollar bonuses. The Occupy protests are just the beginning.
- Ichneumon Darcen · Top CommenterYup, tear it all down and replace it with the Glorious Workers Paradise! Woo hoo! Worked great in the Soviet Union, let's do it here!!Reply · · Saturday at 2:19pm
- Dave BatesI don't think people want the Soviet Union, I think people want a real democratic say in how the economy is run. The people, not corporate lobbyists, should run the country. The interests of the people, not corporate CEOs, should come first. For example, people should have access to affordable healthcare and college education. People should be able to stay in their homes and retire with dignity. This movement is about saving the middle class in America.
- Steve Eggleston · Fredericksburg, VirginiaOne key distinction that seems to be missed here and elsewhere is the difference between "Mega Huge" Corporations and Small Business. While the 'maga-corps' may have some obscene profits and salaries, the average small business, the type that built this country, is not in a similar position.
All of the plans that I have seen seem to lump all 'evil' corporations together, regardless of size.
The very arbitrary $250,000/Yr = Wealthy is not realistic.
One viable idea to 'sting' the obscenely wealthy AND possibly screw some banks in the process would be either elimination of the home interest deduction, and the business deduction for 'secondary' residences over $1,000,000 in value. Or perhaps a sales tax on residences priced a certain percentage over the national average. Lacking a deduction perhaps more of the 'wealthy' would pay cash and skip the banks altogether.- Mike Tucker · Works at National Institutes of Health (NIH)Agreed...unless you're proposing to only eliminate the home interest deduction for those whose homes are over $1mil in value....which would include the "wealthy" (which YOU are choosing to define) and nearly everyone in affluect areas of the country (including NoVA, not far from where you live, Steve). Theoretically it would hurt some banks if more people paid more cash for their homes. Do you really think a professional athlete, hollywood actor, actress, and other millionaires would care much if they didn't have that home interest deduction? This is nothing more than singling out a group and raising taxes their taxes - the top 1% that already pay 40-50% of the federal income taxes collected.
- Val Dorr · Bass and Guitar Instructor at El Rey Music CenterChrys Constantinou, you'll note he said "for secondary residences over $1 million in value." The average American homeowner does not own a million dollar vacation home.
And Mike, that top 1% (see chart above) owns 40-60% of the property and money in the country, depending on what aspect of it you look at. Do you think the people who are working to the best of their ability all the time that their employers will let them and buy the cheapest foods they can and live in shitty places so that they can somehow scrape along should be paying a comparatively equal share of taxes, or do you think the people with the million-dollar secondary residences Steve described could maybe afford to give them a break?
- Kent Norton · Norton-mind-body-spirit lifestyle values management at Norton Healthcare11.5 MILLION DOLLARS donated by Chase Bank to Police organizations. the bank area is secured and roped off to protesters. sounds like Baksheesh to me. Besides Adam Smith never heard of corporations in Wealth OF Nations. Lord Keynes was an idiot.
- Kevin StoutKent Norton thanksReply · · October 13 at 10:48am
- Garrett York · Top CommenterOh my...such informative and revealing charts...of course, I particularly like how the blame stops at the banks. Any chance we can get a chart on how many toxic assets backed by Fannie and Freddie were foisted on the banks? Or perhaps the numbers of idiot borrowers who paid no attention to what a subprime mortgage was? Oh, I see...this site link to Paul Krugman as some sort of legitimate source of economic knowledge. A former Enron advisor. Never mind...I see where your credibility went.
- Dominic Haberstumpf · Top Commenter"Never let facts get in the way of a good story." - Mark Twain
The charts are helpful; not for the banks, there's not enough convoluted finance jargon (like the shit told to people buying a home they couldn't afford). It does stop at the banks. Spin harder, G. Spin harder. You can do it!
BTW, EU is on its way down:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/credit-suisse-buries-e -uropeam-banks-sees-deutsch e-bank-and-65-other-bank-f ailing-latest-stress - Crystal Cassidy · Top Commenter · California State Unitiversity - San Bernardino? "foisted on banks?" I thought that Fannie and Freddie were in trouble 'cause they BOUGHT the toxic crap from the banks. Post a link to something that credibly demonstrates otherwise. Of course, there's plenty of blame to go around - but the banks, so far, are the one group that got bailed out of the mess. Everyone else - even millions with NOTHING to do with it still suffers. And, the banks were definitely the biggest problem. The fairy tale you hear about the Community Reinvestment Act being the boogyman is a load of crap. Those mortgages have done better than the banks' own sub-prime scheme. You don't read the news much, do you?
- Thraxarious Hai DracoTurn it on its head, isn't a bank supposed to check out that a person should be able to pay for something before lending money out? While government regulations only go so far towards allowing people consideration, it does NOT mean that banks must give loans to whoever walks in off the street! As time went on, banks were making more and more loans, with less scrutiny to the people they loaned to. These are some of the people who should be in jail for roping people into bad loans.
The reason was that banks and bank loan officers made BANK on making a mortgage, and rolling it into a security. The bank sold it and everyone made a big fat load of cash. Who cared if they were bad loans? The money was too loud, and everyone at the bank would get paid even if it failed.
The original idea was to make the better part of the security prop up the less desirable ones. But greed got out of hand and suddenly it didn't matter what you put into them, they sold out like hotcakes. But due to regulatory capture, the people supposed to oversee this were more interested in later getting a fat paycheck job at the very institutions they were supposed to regulate.
- Alan Kaiser · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma"CEO pay has skyrocketed 300% since 1990. Corporate profits have doubled. Average "production worker" pay has increased 4%. The minimum wage has dropped. (All numbers adjusted for inflation)."
However your graph shows that CEO pay at the end of the Clinton administration was actually about 400%. So in actuality it has dropped to 300% not skyrocketed. Several of your graphs show exactly opposite of what you state they show.
Are people looking at the actual graphs or just what you claim them to represent?- Alan Kaiser · Oklahoma City, OklahomaAhem look again. The graph clearly shows 400% not X in the 90s.Reply · · October 14 at 7:18am
- Barry Stephens · Southern Garrett County HighAlan Kaiser It skyrocketed to 400% during the Clinton years, but dropped to 300% but if you look at the graph and found the average rate of change between 1990 and now it would be a positive slope and be about 300% change between 1990 and now.
Reply · · October 14 at 1:41pm
- Chris Thacker · Works at UCSF Medical CenterI don't pretend to be an economist but this has been in the back of my mind for 20 years. As corporate greed ("and being accountable to their shareholders") becomes more important, it's never enough to simply be a successful business and maintain a healthy percentage of growth. That percentage of growth, for some reason, has to INCREASE... year over over over year.
I'm all for innovation, automation and technology. That's how we get better products.
The job off-shoring is what concerns me. I'm not completely for it or against it. What concerns me is I see it as slowly cannibalizing ourselves. As fewer people can find middle class jobs and the quality of life diminishes, US corporations will have fewer people, in the developed countries at least, able to buy their products. Eventually it'll catch up to us, if it hasn't already.
The huge growth of illegal immigration and the cheap foreign labor has sustained this but how long can we keep this up? - Louis M. Takacs · Bridgewater, New JerseyI guess since the avg CEO pay is so much more than anyone can imagine and is so much more than what other countries CEOs get paid I this is a bad thing - maybe all CEOs need some salary cap. I say we Occupy MLB next as the avg Baseball player salary is so much higher here in America than it should be. Ticket prices to a game and all these flashy stadiums and TV deals - unbelievable. Let's go to Arods house next. Then we'll do Occupy NFL, Occupy NBA, etc.
- Jack Fischer · San Francisco State UniversityLouis, how many baseball games you been to lately. You want to pay 100.00 to see folks hit a little ball, that's your business. And I love baseball. But you're talking apples and oranges. We give the government our tax money to help make our society better, not to be entertained. And certainly not to save corporate crooks that get a little too greedy, get bailed out at our expense, and then have the gall to give the American public the finger. If the govnmnt. had also bailed out folks who were having foreclosure or defalult mortgage problems, or at least modified those loans until they got caught up, we wouldn't be in this mess. But if you think, the banks cared about the housing market going under, think again. The banks and insurance co.s own the politicians. Let's talk about all the insurance money that gets paid off as well. They all gambled with our money and screwed up. Now they want more, so we can be greatful they're too big to fail.
- Louis M. Takacs · Bridgewater, New JerseyJack - Not sure you if you understood my comments but I was being a bit facetious here. My overall issue with the Occupy Wall Street is that they're going about it the wrong way, if they want to make change go Occupy Government or Washington DC. This is the crux of the problem. If you want to make change also have a clear cut agenda as well - case in point the Tea Party organized and got people elected that support what they believe in (BTW I'm not a Tea Party person just using them as an example). I agree with your comments about big business owning the government - but is that the fault of big business or the government officials who cater to the them? Another similar example - Unions with the states also own the government, they ask for everything under the sun, pensions, premium medical, guaranteed wage increases regardless of how the economy is doing - is that the Unions fault or the people who elected the government croonies that allow the Unions to call the shots? Lastly regarding the bailout money - I agree that the bailout of Financial Institutions was not the right thing to do - but then again would you rather have the market collapse the way it did with people's retirement plans decreasing 20%-30% or would it have been better to lose 80%-90% of your retirement savings?
- Amanda Kesler · Pharmacy Technician at Rite AidLouis - I understand, but the problem is the actions of the corporations, even if it is the government which must change to reel in the inherent nature of publicly traded corporations toward profit-at-any-cost. The point is made better by occupying Wall Street than occupying Pennsylvania Avenue - simply because we don't want anarchy - we want economic reform, and Wall Street is the center of economics in the American perception.Reply · · Saturday at 8:09pm
- Jatin Luthia · Ealing, United KingdomThough the data is correct, the context of analysis is definitely incorrect. American labor has been winning compared to the rest of the world for a long time. The current disparity has largely risen from the fact that while capital has largely stayed in the US and labor has partially equalised over the rest of the world. Bear in mind though that wages in India and China are indeed less. With businesses getting more complex and global, CEOs are likely to get paid more (Though some amounts are obnoxious). It is businesses job to be competitive and make profits and it is labor's job to be competitive. If it is too costly to hire someone, economics will dictate that labor will move elsewhere. If wall street protests do make wall street dysfunctional, then capital will move away too and it will just be a double-whammy for labor as capital is a very competitive resource that US has especially as the Dollar holds out as a currency of choice. Such simplistic graphs and comments distort long-term economic realities and the result of years of trade and labour barriers followed by the developed world. Once the barriers started lifting, economic reality became different. I think more people need to understand economics than simply blame capital as capital has no direct social commitment. Its commitment to society is more indirect and derivative.
- Henry HarveySo what you're saying is that it's the job of business to be competitive and make profit, even if it means throwing out of work the people that live in the country where that business originated.
The inherent unfairness in globalization is that a company can relocate whereas I can't realistically move my family to another country.
I don't think one could be seen as opposed to capital per se if the wish is only to see a situation in which the people who manage corporations invest capital in the countries and the people who have helped them to get so rich and powerful.
Much of the rage in the Occupy Wall Street movement comes from the realization that the multinational corporations and the financial institutions are selling us short, both literally and figuratively. - Jatin Luthia · Ealing, United KingdomHenry Harvey Your comments are not economically driven. I am saying what incents each section of business. It is definitely the job of business to be competitive and make profits. Origination of business is very relative. Most American conglomerates earn more revenues overseas. How do you define "Origination"? Incorporation is not sufficient to define origination. You may be passionate but it is not enough to resolve the crisis. I think a matured response combining passion, economics and politics would be more useful. Otherwise, it may sound like irrational rabble-rousing and leave the US insular and lagging. The key to success of the US economy has been its adaptability.Reply · · October 14 at 11:55pm
- Sam Wonderly · San Francisco, CaliforniaJatin Luthia A mature response to your global economy imbalance, where American workers must compete with $3 per day overseas workers, working in abysmal factories without health care and with little regard for environmental damage... I say end the so-called free trade agreements. If Apple, Inc., GE and others wish to make their products overseas, as they enter the USA a high tariff should apply. You might argue Apple could care about the relatively small USA consumer population compared with India, China, and the rest of the world. OK...but how many consumers in other countries can afford the high prices for Apple's products? Same goes for all sorts of goods produced overseas because the USA is supposedly no longer a competitive producer...given the rules of the game (or lack of).
Traditionally, countries developing in...fant industries have established protective tariffs against mature industries from developed countries. This is done for these industries to survive. This occurred in Mexico in the automobile industry, and today they now export high volumes to the USA as a result...without an adequate tariff in my view to protect what's left of American industry. In a way this is happening in China also, where there is no official import duty, yet it's near impossible to export anything to this country due to countless rules and red tape regulations. Economists claim tariffs create trade wars
Ultimately big business will realize a shrinking USA middle class will not necessarily be replaced by a growing middle class in countries such as China, India, Brazil, etc... You say the key to success is our adaptability, but there comes a time when 11 players are no match against 30...or 10 must not wear shoes on rocky soil when the others wear sneakers! See More
- Trevor Brown · Brooks CollegeThis is all very fascinating, and it's clear there is a problem, but still there is no solution or a TRUE identification of the problem. The above is a lot of information that draws absolutely no clear conclusion. As such, we will not have a solution - no matter how much the protesters on wall street complain and scream and shout and throw things. Wake up people, we don't get what we want by simply making a scene, you NEED to have a focus to the raw power of assembly. Last I checked the unions were exploiting the protestors - hilarious stuff that they all deserve.
- Holly Butterfield · Nanticoke, PennsylvaniaActually, the point of the above wasn't to present a solution, it was to explain what the people on Wall Street are angry about. In fact, it mentions that the protestors aren't putting their complaints/anger/etc together well enough and it is hurting their cause. "But the protesters have not done a good job of focusing their complaints—and thus have been skewered as malcontents who don't know what they stand for or want."
- Kent Norton · Norton-mind-body-spirit lifestyle values management at Norton HealthcareHolly Butterfield good point. they need a focal point. at least the hippies of the 60's had an agenda; but most were well educated. unfortunately, some of these people have not done research; there may be equalty in a socialist country like Sweeden; here we must seek balance or equilibrium; the scales will always tip to extremes but hopefully will end up in the middle somewhere
- Jonathan FrancesOutstanding collection of information. Thank you for presenting this in an easily digestible format.
- Jonathan FrancesBecause only excessively overwrought arguments are worthy of public dissemination?Reply · · Sunday at 7:59am
- Thien H. Nguyen · Fort Wayne, IndianaDifferent timelines, same stories. Yet, people still can't dig hard enough to find the REAL truth. This is nothing yet... just another distractions to prepare for the grand plays to come. R u ready? WOOHOO!
- Ichneumon Darcen · Top CommenterSure, if you like superficial propaganda points devoid of in-depth analysis.Reply · · Saturday at 2:26pm
- Douglas Duhaime · UConn
- Jason McKenney · DIRECTV, Inc.But many of those other countries that have "less" "inequality" than the US also have higher unemployment rates. Soooo what does "inequality" have to do with the unemployment gripe? Also, many of the laws passed to support the banker bailouts were supported by the Obama admin, yet so many of the OWS crowd are Obama supporters. What gives? Nearly all of these economic discrepencies arise due to increased government intervention (either banker subsidies, Fed Reserve involvement, or manipulated regulations) and the answer most commonly supported by OWS is...MORE government interventions? None of this makes any sense.
- Diego Fernando Saldarriaga · Universidad de MedellinAs always they WIN... dividing pepple by opinions, race, colors, religions, etc. Each one take sides depending on their needs and all forgot about the concept of SOCIETY: ( is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification and/or dominance patterns in subgroups.
Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap.
THINK ABOUT IT! - Bradley Dobie · Top Commenter · Master Control Operator at KEYC-TVSo all the people at occupy Wall St. keep saying the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. However, when I look at these charts I see the rich getting richer and the poor doing about the same. Therefore, I would argue that the people of occupy Wall St. are really just jealous of the rich because the working class citizens, who they claim to represent, have been making about the same since 1964 according to the average salary chart.
- Bradley Dobie · Top Commenter · Master Control Operator at KEYC-TVChris Waterous the chart accounts for inflation which is calculated based on the price of items we buy everyday like food and energy.
Travis Knap for point A) like I told Chris the chart accounts for inflation and as for B) The minimum wage workers are included in that calculation. The reason unemployment has gone up is because in order to survive the recession companies needed to cut back which is unfortunate. Companies will not begin to hire again until they see strong and CONSISTENT profits. If we try to capitalize on their wealth they will remain in a fiscal clam shell and refuse to hire anyone out of protection of self interest (also an unfortunate truth). The simple fact is almost everyone rich or poor wants more money and the way the rich make money is buy giving the poor jobs, but they won't do that until they feel they can do so with out being bankrupt by taxes.
